


BULGARIA: 160, IRELAND: 170

by counterheist



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Quidditch, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M, Made Up Wizarding Social Media, basically this is an Ep12 reaction fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 00:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9148909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: Yuuri Katsuki promised to bring back something round and gold for his coach, but not exactly like this. A Quidditch AU.





	

The crowd roars it, but Viktor is too beside himself to speak.

_Yu-ri!_

_Yu-ri!_

_Yu-ri!_

Six hours deep into the World Quidditch Cup Final, and he’s given ten interviews, almost fallen out of his box four times, and lost his wand every twenty minutes until he finally gave it to Makkachin for safekeeping. It’s not his fault. He’s –

_Yu-ri!_

He’s excited.

* * *

When he isn’t practicing with the Japan National Quidditch Team, Yuuri Katsuki spends most of his time coaxing trickster spirits out of the baths at his parents’ onsen. He also weeds the gardens, cleans rooms, and provides recommendations and translations for the guests. Mari will be inheriting the business, so she’s really the one who does a little bit of everything, but Yuuri helps where he can. Onsen in general have been on the decline across Saga Prefecture, and Yu-topia Akatsuki is one of the few left that specifically caters to the magical world. Keeping Yu-topia alive is important.

Plus, Yuuri has a lot of time on his hands now that he’s failed at flying.

He might still be certified by the JQF, but so are plenty of others, and none of them ruined the chances of the entire nation in the semifinals against Brazil last year, now did they? Because Yuuri did. Yuuri and his inability to stay on his broom, and his inability to catch the Snitch ruined it for everyone. So now Yuuri is back in Hasetsu, trying to get wizarding families from overseas to stop recording flecs of youkai families in the baths. He has the strong suspicion he’s failing at this too, but he has the doubly strong suspicion that the youkai asked the humans to take the Reflections in the first place.

Sighing, he retreats to the dining room, and his mother’s kindness, and more importantly his mother’s cooking.

“Ah, there you are, Yuuri,” she says when she sees him. “Come over to the fireplace. There’s a floo for you.”

Yuuri has been hiding from floos and owls and the outside world for roughly all of the last six months. In particular, he’s spent more hours in the baths in that time than in the rest of his life combined, because magic mirrors are banned in that area of the onsen, and there are anti-apparition wards to rival the inner halls of the Imperial Residence. If the price of hiding his shame is smelling like a boiled egg then so be it. But when he hears a familiar voice chatting with his father he steps around into the back of the kitchen, and up to the grate his family uses for their private calls. It’s cramped back there, but there’s a nice cushion for sitting or kneeling in front of the fire, and there’s always a snack to offer.

“And here he is now,” Yuuri’s father claps his hands and waves goodbye before standing up from his spot on the floo cushion. “Take care, Yuuko. And bring the girls over any time you like. It wouldn’t be a bother at all for us to watch them for you.”

“Thank you so much!” Yuuri is a little surprised to see Yuuko Nishigori’s head in his kitchen fireplace. They used to have long floo conversations when they were children, and the weather outside wasn’t very nice to walk in. But nowadays they both tend to use their magic mirrors for communication over something so old-fashioned. “Yuuri!”

He sits heavily when he sees how unhappy she is. “Yuuko? What’s – ”

“I am so so _so_ sorry, Yuuri. I didn’t know they were there watching and that they had my mirror or that they were recording or that they were going to put a flec of you flying on Avis or that anyone was going to watch it but now it’s everywhere on the web, and I’m so sorry they did that without your permission and I will march them right over to apologize in person but I wanted to tell you before you saw it yourself!”

Yuuko bows her head, pants for breath, and Yuuri stares. Yuuri stares, long and hard, and then takes his magic mirror out from his pocket. It’s a thin rectangle of dull glass with smooth edges, similar in appearance to a Muggle cellu-lar telephonic device. He taps it twice and whispers _Vicchan_ – Yuuko’s known his password forever anyway, no need to cast a silencing charm – and he is suddenly overwhelmed with the missed callings, and notices, and the sheer number of people talking to and about him on all the runic channels of the Worldwide Wizarding Web. His name is trending on Avis, right above #YOLO. _Yuuri is more popular than living once_. The flec has over sixty thousand hoots, and it’s only been an hour according to the time marker at the bottom of the posting.

Yuuri breaths a quick invocation to the family shrine, and then calmly weighs the pros and cons of heading back to bed and never leaving it again until he dies.

 _Pro:_ his bed is very warm.

 _Con:_ he’ll never get to fly again.

 _Pro:_ he won’t have to face the world.

 _Con:_ who is he kidding; he’ll have to face the world every time he unlocks his mirror.

“They will never do it again, Yuuri,” Yuuko says. Her head is still bowed, the tips of her side bangs trailing into the glowing green coals. “I’ll make sure Quaffle, Bludger, and Snitch understand why they shouldn’t.”

“It’s fine,” Yuuri says to the screen. A ghostly little image of him doing a quadruple roll midair flies by on the surface of his mirror. The wind was so strong that day it pushed his hair completely back, and he had to put his glasses in his pocket to keep them safe. He had enjoyed himself so much more than he has in such a long time. Just him and the sky, and no one watching. He says it’s fine. ( _It’s not fine._ )

He ends the floo with Yuuko, and leaves the kitchen in a daze.

The cons have outweighed the pros, but he can hide under the covers for the rest of the night. Yuuri always wishes Vicchan were still with them. But times like these he wishes it extra hard.

* * *

The recording is shaky, especially when it moves in on the figure zooming back and forth along the tops of the trees. He’s barely recognizable, at first, but after ten seconds and two heart stopping dives the face of the figure on the lithe old Cirrus 800 is clearly in focus. Yuuri Katsuki’s eyes are closed against the wind, and he weaves back and forth between the Quidditch pitch and the forest surrounding it. Even when he squints he doesn’t look directly out, like he didn’t know his flec was being captured. But the _way_ he moves is what’s so striking. The flips, and rolls, and hundred foot dives: to anyone who knows anything about Quidditch they look just like a Nikiforov play.

Yuuri ends by hurtling himself through the center hoop, his body flat against his broom. He stops a meter short of the stands, arms wide and face to the sky.

Yuri can’t fucking stand it.

* * *

Things Yuri Plisetsky hates about Yuuri Katsuki:

\- he falls off his broom

\- he’s supposedly a professional and he falls off his fucking broom

\- he got lost in a snowstorm once, and instead of kicking him off the team they promoted him to captain for bringing back the Snitch and not dying

\- he doesn’t even have a fucking home team when he’s not playing with nationals, what makes him so special

\- he’s a failure

\- he’s a quitter

\- he’s weak

\- ( _he got Viktor to really look at him_ )

\- he keeps falling off his stupid broom

* * *

Exactly twenty-nine seconds after Mari says, “I hear that guy you’ve got so many posters of has gone missing,” Yuuri hears his mother say, “Yuuuuuuuri! We have a foreign guest in the bath who needs some help in English.”

Anyone else would think these two things have nothing to do with each other. But Yuuri knows better. They are not coincidences, because he’s not lucky enough for coincidences, and he takes off at a sprint accordingly. His posters wave goodbye, and wink, and flip their hair at him, and he hopes he’s wrong but knows he isn’t.

He isn’t.

Viktor Nikiforov is taller in person. Also wetter.

More naked.

Meaner, too, but Yuuri can only process so much sensory input at any one time, and he’s at his limit with the way Viktor starts to crowd up against him after Yuuri’s coaxed him into a jinbei. The way Viktor looks at him, and touches him, and the way he sounds and smells and laughs – all of those things get set at the back of Yuuri’s mind for later review. And review them he does when he has to slam his door in Viktor Nikiforov’s face that night, only to have twenty two-dimensional copies silently gasp at him from his walls.

“Viktor Nikiforov wants to coach me,” he says to the shorthaired Viktor on his ceiling.

“Viktor Nikiforov wants to coach _just_ me,” he says to the longhaired Viktor overlooking his desk.

“He quit as captain and starting Chaser for the Saint Petersburg Zenit in the middle of a five-year winning streak to move to Japan and teach me how to fly like he does,” he says to the Viktor in Russian National Team robes, but mostly to himself.

No matter how many times or ways he repeats it, it still doesn’t make any sense to Yuuri. Viktor is a Chaser. Yuuri is a Seeker. Viktor is a champion. Yuuri is a pudgy loser. Viktor has beautiful eyes, and Yuuri wants to drown in them. Death is the most honorable option right now, and drowning in Viktor’s  cold stare is the way Yuuri would prefer to go.

He hears a faint singsong “Yuuri! Get lots of sleep. You’ll need your rest!” from just outside his door. It’s said in Viktor Nikiforov’s voice, in the way Viktor Nikiforov sounds when he’s patting helplessly at a closed door and whining lonesomely while his pet poodle nuzzles at his arms. It’s a sound Yuuri never imagined before, and will never be able to forget now that it’s been directed at him.

* * *

Viktor doesn’t really tell Yuuri why he’s there until much, much later. At the time he says he finds Yuuri inspirational, and that’s true enough. He finds Yuuri amazingly inspirational. Yuuri might not have the best broom-handling skills – and _oh,_ how he _blushes_ when Viktor tells him just that – but he has an innate sensibility for flying that Viktor has seen on so very few other players. Yuuri Katsuki has a need to fly. All Viktor wants is to fulfill it.

So he quits the Zenit, and the National Team, and moves to Japan. Yakov is furious with him, not to mention The Ministry, but he takes it all in stride. He’s not committing treason, or anything, just promoting international wizarding friendships. Viktor is _reaching out_ and they should be grateful, not shouty! If the Russian team deserves to win the next World Cup then they’ll do just fine without him. One player shouldn’t make that much of a difference for a strong team, he writes back to Yakov, and almost means.

Mostly means.

Viktor fully means it in the general sense. It’s only with these specific teams that he doesn’t, because he knows that _he_ makes a difference. It’s just a fact: Viktor has carried every team he’s been on since Durmstrang, when he was first allowed to compete.

He gets nineteen Howlers after the first selfie – Muggles think up the best words for these things, all wizarding social media is named after spells and historical figures, so boring – with Yuuri hits legilimens. It’s a memory of sightseeing in Hasetsu, appropriately filtered to really bring out the architecture and the sea. Viktor laughs at the first few exploding red messages that show up the next day, because even after all the advances in magic mirrors and the complicated spell network of the web, the preferred way to express anger is still shouting at someone personally.

The next seventeen Howlers are a little more tiresome.

But. Viktor perseveres. He takes Yuuri’s wand away and sends him out to run through the forest. He gets Yuuri off his antique family broom, and back onto his Yajirushi. He befriends the local wizarding population and spirits, one by one, and enlists them to help Yuuri with his training. They all but jump to agree. Sure, at first they are in awe of Viktor – everyone is – but that wears off quickly enough in Hasetsu – to Viktor’s unending surprise. Soon he’s just Viktor, the odd duck who’s living with the Katsukis, training their Yuuri. After three months in Hasetsu they’re already asking him for advice and giving plenty of their own in return, slipping pleas to meet Yuuri in to the conversation. Viktor agrees to them a few at a time. He doesn’t know how it happened, but he knows more people in Hasetsu than Yuuri does, now.

Maybe it has to do with Yuuri’s tunnel vision towards the sky.

Either way, it’s not something Viktor’s used to. He resists it at first, but. Viktor will always love flying to his core, but it’s not the worst thing in the world, putting down roots.

* * *

Yuri’s appearance at the training pitch throws a real Bludger into the works, but he can’t say he was aiming for anything less. He finally reaches the age where he can get special permission to practice with the NT, to practice with _Viktor_ , and what does Viktor go and do? He quits! For some Japanese washout who couldn’t make it, to whom he has promised absolutely nothing. If Viktor thought Yuri wasn’t going to take the first portkey he could to Japan and see exactly in person what is so special about the loser who shares his name, well, he deserves an actual Bludger to his stupid face.

What follows does not go according to plan.

“Yurio,” Katsuki says gently, he’s always saying things so gently to Yuri it drives him insane, “you can’t take flecs in the baths. It’s very rude. But if you like you can take them of the gardens outside?”

It’s like Katsuki thinks he’s a _child_.

“I don’t want to take a flec of a stupid tree, pig,” he snarls, “and – ah! Dammit, my mirror!”

Viktor appears then, always at just the right time to see Yuri’s failures, ignoring all the moments of his success. “If you had listened to Yuuri in the first place you wouldn’t have dropped your mirror into the water, now would you?”

“Hypocrite,” Yuri mumbles, too low for Viktor to hear. Viktor might be infuriating, might have displayed the worst judgment possible coming to Japan, but he’s still Viktor. Yuri has to work up to really letting him have it.

“Yes, yes, now smile!” Viktor holds his own mirror in front of their faces, while Katsuki rolls his eyes and reaches down to retrieve Yuri’s. Katsuki conveniently escapes the flec at the same time, until Viktor notices he isn’t there, and tries to take it again and again until the pig will sit still and let him have this moment, well if you won’t in the baths then maybe I’ll just post this selfie to legilimens, too late I’ve done it!

They’re facing off at the Castle tomorrow, the only Quidditch pitch in the entire town. It will be a game stripped down to the only important part – one Snitch and the two Seekers trying to capture it. Whoever catches it first wins Viktor, and when they are queueing for the portkey back to Saint Petersburg Yuri will finally lay in to him. Tell him just how much he’s let Yuri down. How much he’s let Russia down, and Yakov, and every connection to his life – his _life_ , not his _old_ life – he left behind like a discarded memory, not good enough to legilimize.

Before he settles in to sleep, Katsuki’s sister stops by his room. “Good luck tomorrow, Yurio,” she says, as though he isn’t half a day away from crushing her brother’s pathetic resolve between his iron fists. As though his sole purpose in coming here wasn’t to get Katsuki to own to the fact that Yuri is better than he is, and has such a greater future ahead of him. “Yuuri wanted to say good luck too, but he went and passed out at the kotatsu. You kids are working too hard.”

“…not a kid,” Yuri yawns.

“Of course,” she replies. He thinks he sees her mirror glinting in her hand as his traitorous eyes become too heavy to keep open, but he doesn’t see any flecs tagged under his name on Avis the next morning. No embarrassing selfies on legilimens either.

* * *

Yuri takes his scheduled portkey back to Russia the next day, but he takes it by himself.

* * *

The days pile into weeks and months after Yurio’s trespass into their lives abruptly ends. Yuuri keeps track of him on legilimens, more so than on Avis, finds it easier to pick out the truth of how Yurio is doing there. It’s not impossible to slant the truth on a runic channel devoted to hosting and sharing actual, felt memories, but it’s difficult to do it consistently. Doubly so for someone like Yurio, with so many stormy emotions compressed into so small a space. Yuuri muses on this one day to Viktor, on one of the rare breaks he is allowed on his seaside runs.

Makkachin and Viktor’s sleek, nameless custom broom sit on the bench between them, but Viktor is still too close for Yuuri to relax.

“It’s not so difficult to lie with memories,” Viktor finally says. He’s staring out at the sea. “Really, it’s quite easy. Memories lie all the time.”

“My mother used to say memories are harder to grasp than charms, but twice as nice,” Yuuri ventures. At Viktor’s questioning look he flushes, continues, “it’s a joke, she. Because she can’t do magic, so she likes to joke about how difficult magic is to do.”

“Your mother is a squib?” Viktor asks, surprised. He would have put at least a galleon on Hiroko Katsuki using magic in her cooking. “Or… are you half?”

“My parents are both from magical families,” Yuuri’s face is redder than a Remembrall now, and he’s angry at himself for even bringing it up. He picks at his gloves, thinks about how Viktor began flying at Durmstrang, which doesn’t even accept Muggle-borns as students. “But neither of them can do magic. So. They were very happy when Mari and I both showed enough aptitude to go to school with the other children. And they were very supportive of my flying, even when it took time away from my studies.”

They continue Yuuri’s run, after that. Or: Yuuri pushes himself off the bench before Viktor can say anything else, and Makkachin chases after him. Viktor lingers before picking up his broom. He catches up quickly, but doesn’t overtake Yuuri this time. Instead he chooses to wordlessly fly next to him, toes dragging along the rocks and sand.

When they make it back to Yu-topia, Viktor starts to ramble about adding sprints to Yuuri’s training regimen, and more grip exercises, and meditation too, and Yuuri’s head is spinning by the time he escapes to his own bedroom. They have four months until open trials for the National Team begin, and every time Yuuri thinks about it he feels sick. Thinking about it while thinking about Viktor leaving because his pupil is the son of two wizard-borns gives Yuuri a headache to go along with the pit of ice in his stomach.

At the dinner he skips, Viktor casts a translation charm on himself and bluntly says, “Yuuri told me today you can’t do magic.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Hiroko nods. Her face is placid, friendly.

Viktor frowns. “That must have been difficult for him.”

“Some,” Toshiya agrees, taking a seat at the low table. The last guests have returned to their rooms, and Mari is out for the night with friends. “He’s the type of boy to worry about things like that on our behalf.”

“Then he is a good son,” Viktor says, and takes a drink.

Toshiya’s sudden laughter dispels the heavy air. “I see, I see,” he says, “But that’s the sort of thing you should be telling Yuuri directly, you know.” He clasps Viktor on the shoulder, and the force is stronger than Viktor expected. “And then as we always say to him, neither of you need to worry about it again. Hiroko and I get along just fine.”

Viktor ends his charm for the escape a limited vocabulary brings him. He says, “I followed your son across the world because he asked me to. He put his arms around me, and asked me to while I was accepting an award from the Minister of Magic,” in flat Russian.

And then, “Yes,” he says in wobbly Japanese, “I will bring Yuuri food.”

* * *

By the time the day of the trials dawns, Yuuri is distracted by so many worries he almost forgets to bring his broom. He knows it’s ridiculous, or some small part of him does, deep down. The only reason he has to audition is that he didn’t send an owl reconfirming his place on the team within the appropriate timeframe. This is a formality, this is more than anything an exhibition of his skills to a stadium full of enthusiasts. As Viktor reminds him over and over again, there is no pressure here.

None but for whatever is currently crushing Yuuri’s mind into so much pixie dust.

He avoids his former teammates, and the other hopefuls. He doesn’t sit with the other potential Seekers until Viktor places two hands on his shoulders and shoves him in the direction of the Seeker waiting area. “I don’t really know what it’s like playing a position by yourself,” he says with gusto, “but even Seekers are another part of the team, Yuuri. Go! Mingle!”

Thus commanded, Yuuri approaches the small crowd. Some of the faces are familiar in a way he can’t place; he might have trained with them somewhere, or saw them at school. He stares at them. They stare back. This lasts until his number is called.

The stands go quiet as he walks out towards the pitch. Yuuri takes a deep breath. He has prepared for this. Viktor has prepared him for this, and he is ready.

And speaking of Viktor. “Ah ah,” Yuuri hears, and then suddenly there Viktor is, devastating in his crisp dress robes, outshining Yuuri like the sun to the moon. “No flying without your goggles, Yuuri, here. Let me.” Viktor has Yuuri’s flight goggles in hand, just another thing Yuuri embarrassingly forgot on his own, and he presses them against Yuuri’s face. He moves in even closer to fix the straps around behind Yuuri’s head, and Yuuri doesn’t know what he did to deserve this.

“I know you’ll catch the Snitch in record time, Yuuri,” Viktor says so close Yuuri can feel warm puffs of breath against his cheeks, “but you should give them something extra too. Show them what you’ve shown me.”

Most of what Yuuri has shown Viktor are faces of extreme confusion, and sweaty exhaustion. He says, “watch me,” and “don’t look away.”

* * *

“A PERSONAL BEST TIME FOR YUURI KATSUKI,” Morooka, the official announcer for the Japan National Team, shouts to the cheering stadium, “AND I’M NEARLY CERTAIN A TOP TEN WORLD RECORD. AMAZING! JUST AS ONE WOULD EXPECT FROM THE KYUSHU FAVORITE!”

And it’s like a dam has broken. Yuuri’s former teammates rush the pitch, and gather him up into their arms. They shout ‘welcome back!’ and ‘Captain Katsuki!’ and Yuuri doesn’t know what to do with any of it, but he is proud, allows himself to feel proud of himself. And then – “Such sloppy turns, Yuuri, really, we will have to work twice as hard on your Sloth Grip too.” Then Viktor has his gloved hands on Yuuri’s shoulders, at the base of Yuuri’s neck. “Next time they won’t be able to cheer because you’ll have stolen their breath.”

But the words don’t sting as much as they did when Viktor first arrived. Yuuri must be getting used to him, and what a ridiculous thought that is. That Yuuri would ever be around Viktor Nikiforov so much to be able to numb himself to his critiques is amazing. “Katsudon first, Sloth Grip tomorrow,” he says firmly, pulling his goggles down around his neck. He can’t see so well without the lenses, and he prefers it that way in the crowd.

“Katsudon for the winner,” Viktor smiles.

* * *

Each Quidditch World Cup cycle lasts four years. The first year after the Cup Final game usually corresponds to the major tournament seasons of local teams and national leagues. The players on the various national teams use the time to rest, reconnect with their families, or train. The second year involves reassembling the national teams, including open auditions and talent scouting at the major magical schools. The qualifiers take place in the third year, and in the fourth year the sixteen teams with the highest points compete for the Cup.

Yuuri spends each day of the second year thinking Viktor will leave at the next stage. After he catches a Snitch in under five minutes, or after he becomes the captain of the Japan National Team again. As the third year approaches it becomes readily apparent that isn’t going to happen. Viktor seems happy enough to stay with Yuuri until the World Cup Final itself, or until Japan is knocked out of the running. No one from Russia comes to retrieve him again – though Yurio does visit now and again to berate them both.

They settle into a sort of pattern – train, visit the Nishigoris, take Viktor sightseeing. Post selfies of Viktor’s first time seeing cherry blossoms, and Tanabata. Yuuri does a few exhibitions with the National Team, though Viktor discourages them as something that belongs in a first or second cycle year. They see friends, they practice Viktor’s Japanese, they take Makkachin to the beach. Viktor hand-delivers a bowl of katsudon to Yuuri every time he catches a Snitch.

They almost – it’s in Yuuri’s head, it has to be, but they almost kiss once, back in Yuuri’s room after relaxing in the baths after a long day. They almost kiss, but they don’t.

The next day Yuuri catches a Snitch in seven minutes. It guarantees Japan a spot in the top sixteen teams.

* * *

In the group stage Yuuri falls off his broom in China in the game against the United States. He’s not very far from the ground when it happens – two meters at most – but it happens at the wrong end of a Wronski Feint initiated by the American Seeker. She dives like an osprey after a fish, and Yuuri speeds after her as soon as he catches the purposeful movement out of the corner of his eye. He swears he sees the edges of her boots brush along the grass at the bottom of the pitch before she seamlessly alters her angle, and bounds back towards the sky in a forceful spiral. Yuuri himself is saved from a nasty head injury by the fact that he is slower to see her dive than she expects, is further behind her when she changes direction. It gives him time to try and avoid the ground.

“WAS THAT THE SNITCH? NO! A CLASSIC WRONSKI FEINT BY SEEKER KWAN OF THE AMERICAN TEAM. KWAN IS BACK UP WITH HER SIGNATURE SPIRAL… CAN KATSUKI PULL OUT OF THAT DIVE?”

Throwing all of his weight against his right shoulder, Yuuri pulls up as fiercely as his arms are capable of. Can he pull out of the dive indeed. The ground gets closer, and closer, and. In the end he manages to change direction – by too much. Yuuri over-rotates, begins an uncontrolled spin, and loses his grip. First his thighs, then one hand, finally the other.

He falls.

“OUCH, KATSUKI’S TAKEN QUITE THE TUMBLE THERE,” the American announcer drawls, “LOTS OF DISMAY COMING FROM THE JAPAN SIDE OF THE STADIUM RIGHT NOW, WOULDN’T YOU SAY, MOROOKA? AND WE’RE PAUSED WHILE THE MEDIWIZARDS SEE TO HIM. CHASER MINAMI IS BARRELING DOWN TO WATCH AND, AH, THERE GO FUJIWARA AND OMIKI WITH HIM TO SEE TO THEIR CAPTAIN.”

The mediwitch introduces herself as Li, and tells Yuuri he has a broken shoulder and a shattered wrist, both of which she’ll be able to patch up in half a moment. His body feels like it’s on fire, but Quidditch injuries are nothing new to him. Eyes closed, Yuuri wills himself to get his breathing under control.

‘Don’t cry.’

“Yuuri!” he hears Minami first, then all three of his Chasers join in a worried chorus of his name. “Are you all right? Here’s your broom, it’s fine, are you fine? Captain!”

He doesn’t hear Viktor’s voice, and perhaps that’s for the best. He opens his eyes. Li finishes her work, bows at Yuuri, hands him his broom. He might remember to thank her, but afterwards he can’t recall if he did. There is blood spattered on the edge of his goggles from a graze on his cheek, but Yuuri’s run out the clock on medical attention for this fall, and it doesn’t bother him anyway.

With a deep breath, he straddles his broom, and pushes himself back into the sky.

Japan wins on goals. The 4-hour time limit for group round matches runs out before either Yuuri or Kwan can catch the Snitch.

* * *

After the match, Viktor is quiet.

The whole team fusses over Yuuri in the locker room, but Viktor keeps his distance. Finally, only Minami is left, asking Yuuri to follow the end of his wand with his eyes. Yuuri promises he doesn’t have a concussion. Minami doesn’t leave until Viktor says, grinning but ice cold, “I promise I won’t let him sleep, if that will reassure you.”

And then they are alone.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri says. He’s not sure which thing he’s apologizing for, but sorrow is one of the overwhelming emotions he’s feeling.

“Yuuri,” Viktor says, “should I… I should quit.”

One of the showerheads behind them is dripping. Drip, drip, drip, like thunder, as though someone cast a _Sonorus_ spell on it. Yuuri sits up a little straighter.

“I should resign as your flying coach if you’re going to use my techniques to plow yourself into the ground,” Viktor says frankly. He’s progressed enough to say it all in Japanese by this point. Yuuri would be proud if Viktor weren’t using his new skills to _Relashio_ Yuuri’s heart right out of his body.

“Why,” Yuuri can’t manage a steady tone, “why would you say something like that to me?” And Viktor has the audacity to look surprised. “I already know I don’t believe in myself. But I thought,” he brushes furiously at his eyes, “I thought if you believed in me then it didn’t matter.”

“Of course I believe in you,” Viktor tries to start, but Yuuri doesn’t let him continue.

“Prove it then!” Yuuri shouts, and it echoes through the empty room. “More than anyone else, you should be my biggest supporter!”

They stare at each other: Yuuri, red-eyed and panting; Viktor, pale and drawn.

“I’m going to keep catching the Snitch,” Yuuri says, voice finally steady. “We are going to the World Cup Final, and I am going to win.”

They stare until Viktor’s shoulders fold inwards the slightest bit. He runs a hand over his face, and Yuuri can’t tell if he’s laughing or crying too. Grabbing Yuuri by the waist, he stands them both up, and kisses Yuuri on the forehead in one smooth motion. “Of course, captain,” he whispers. And then he takes his hands off Yuuri, steps back, and Yuuri can’t handle this so soon after regrowing bones while lying in the mud.

He turns back to the bench and picks up several bright red packages some fans had left with him before the match. Opening one shaped like a heart, he finds four homemade chocolate Snitches inside. This sort of thing has happened to him on a regular basis since his school years, and he’s always found it a little odd. Still, he’s hungry, and emotional, so he takes one of the chocolates and prepares to pop it into his mouth.

“Ah, ah! Perhaps don’t eat that one,” Viktor reaches over and grabs the sweets right out of Yuuri’s hands.

“Viktor?”

He puts a finger to the side of his nose, and winks. “You should pay more attention to how your food smells, Yuuri. You might not have had to in the past, but you must start now.”

“Huh?”

“Trust me.”

* * *

Things Viktor Nikiforov smells when he smells Amortentia:

\- wet dog

\- the wind

\- hot springs

* * *

Yurio corners Yuuri in Moscow after Japan’s semifinal game against Thailand. Yuuri managed to catch the Snitch, but Japan had already achieved an unbeatable lead with goals by the time he did. With this win Japan will face Russia in the World Cup Final in Spain in three weeks. It’s one of the biggest things Yuuri has wanted for most of his life, and he should be excited, but Viktor has never said he would stay past this current World Cup cycle. They may have almost kissed, but Yuuri doesn’t think ‘almost’ has ever been enough for Viktor.

“For someone who’s supposedly a professional at finding one shining speck that’s actively trying to hide from you, you’re terrible at seeing things for how they are,” Yurio bites out. It’s the longest thing he’s ever said to Yuuri all at once, and probably also the nicest.

* * *

Barcelona is cold in the winter.

The Cup is technically taking place in a heavily-warded hilly area outside the city, but most of the players choose to arrive early and sightsee. When Minami brought it up around Yuuri at the team’s last practice in Japan, Yuuri said he didn’t mind it if the team split up for several days before the competition, if they spent the last two days training and bonding together. Viktor chimed in that he’d already booked a hotel room for just the two of them, and no one batted an eye that he would do that, or even be at a Japan National Team meeting at all.

So Yuuri is in Barcelona, staying in a little room with Viktor, trying to get rid of all his stress before playing the most important game of his life. They visit churches, and markets, and statues. Yuuri spends a whole afternoon catching up with an old training friend, Phichit Chulanont, Keeper for the Thailand National Team. They keep in touch with flecs and fireplaces, but nothing is quite the same as sitting across from each other and laughing about the past.

“We’ll get you in four years, I’m sure of it,” Phichit says while swirling his straw in the last bits of his drink. “But that was an amazing catch you made, Yuuri! Right off the edge of the goal posts! I thought you were going to buzz me just to be a menace.”

“Well…” Yuuri starts, and then they dissolve into laughter again.

They part before dinner. Phichit swears he’ll be watching from one of the athlete boxes, and Yuuri does not swear he will win, but he comes very close to thinking it.

“Did you have a good time?” Viktor asks when Yuuri sees him at their meeting spot. The Sagrada Familia is an easily-recognizable landmark, but it is also very beautiful at night. They walk inside, though Yuuri’s not quite sure which one of them leads the way. A choir is singing just in front of the apse, faces illuminated softly by lit candles.

There is something Yuuri has been aching to say, to do. He realizes, after he pulls the rings out of his pocket, that he’s had the courage all along.

* * *

“…AANND KATSUKI! THE JAPAN NATIONAL TEAM HAS TAKEN THEIR PLACES ACROSS FROM THEIR RUSSIAN RIVALS. CAPTAINS KATSUKI AND POPOVITCH SHAKE HANDS. POPOVITCH, OF COURSE, WAS ONLY PROMOTED TO CAPTAIN AFTER THE LEGENDARY CHASER VIKTOR NIKIFOROV RESIGNED THE ROLE THREE YEARS AGO. NIKIFOROV HIMSELF IS SITTING ONLY FOUR SEATS DOWN FROM ME TODAY… MUST BE A LOT OF PRESSURE ON POPOVITCH! AND, OF COURSE, HE IS HERE AS YUURI KATSUKI’S FLYING COACH…”

It takes all the concentration Yuuri has to _stop listening_ to the announcers. He runs his left hand over the strap of his flying goggles, and nods along as the referee sternly reminds the teams of the most frequently committed Quidditch fouls. He shakes Popovitch’s hand, and waits as Popovitch is allowed to move back closer to the goal posts, and the normal Keeper starting position.

He watches the four balls get brought to the field.

The referee blows her whistle, and the game begins.

“MINAMI – OMIKI – MINAMI – FUJIWARA – OMIKI – AND THAT’S A BLUDGER SENT BY BABICHEVA, SHE HAS EXPERT AIM, BUT OMIKI MANAGES TO STAY ON HIS BROOM…”

Hours pass.

There are lights, advertisements, flashes, and spell sparks, but Yuuri only sees the Snitch in fleeting glimpses, once or twice for half a moment at a time. He forces himself not to get frustrated, and not to dwell. 

He calls a time out in the sixth hour so the team can rest, and eat. The longer a Quidditch match goes the harder it is on everyone involved, but the only two people who can control the timing of the game are the Seekers. Yuuri has to take care of his team – he is their captain – and every additional second of play is something he has a personal responsibility for.

Six hours later, Popovitch calls the next time out.

Japan starts out by keeping pace with Russia, but by the thirteenth hour it is obvious to Yuuri they will not be able to win on goals in this game. The Russian Chasers, Viktor’s former protégés and followers, are just too good. Yuuri has to be better, but the split in score begins to drift further and further away from him. By the fourteenth hour Yuuri knows he has to wait for the exact moment they are only 140 points behind. He leads Yurio on several false starts, tries to sap away at his stamina. Yurio might be a prodigy, but he’s never played through a weeklong game in a windstorm before. Yuuri has.

He avoids initiating any Wronski Feints.

Hours pass.

And then Yurio drops out of the sky.

* * *

Yuuri’s already following, hurtling as fast as his Yajirushi will move him, by the time he thinks about Viktor waiting in the Top Box.

If he hits the ground at this speed the mediwizards will only have a few seconds to heal him before the damage is irreversible. He begins to gain on Yurio, does not allow himself to worry, and looks ahead.

Fluttering innocently near the centerline is the Golden Snitch. As though it notices them noticing it, it speeds away; first past the Russian goal posts, and then back towards the spectators, but this time Yuuri doesn’t lose sight of it. He angles underneath Yurio, then pops up next to him, surprising him. A Bludger whistles past him, but he rolls to avoid it, and again when it returns back the way it came.

Yuuri peels ahead, sees the Snitch move closer, and closer, begins to see the detailed hatching on its body, feels a presence to his side – Yurio, catching up.

He sees the blur of the Snitch’s wings, judges himself close enough, and takes one hand off his broom.

He reaches out.

* * *

Things Yuuri Katsuki thinks about as his fingers close around the Snitch:

\- he promised to bring back something round and gold for his coach, he will

\- the numbers he’s been adding up in his head to Morooka’s shouts, how close they are

\- too close, he’s afraid

\- his family, Vicchan

\- how proud he is of his team, how grateful he is they welcomed him back

\- katsudon

\- Viktor

* * *

He’s afraid, but his hand reaches out and grasps tight anyway.

* * *

“AND THAT’S IT!” Hisashi Morooka shouts, nearly hoarse despite the _Sonorus_ spell he’s had to reapply every hour since the beginning of the match. Next to him, his counterparts from Spain and Russia do the same. “AFTER EIGHTEEN HOURS OF SEARCHING, CAPTAIN YUURI KATSUKI HAS CAUGHT THE SNITCH!”

The crowd sounds like an avalanche.

“THE SCORE STANDS 340-330…”

Yuuri grips his broom with his spare hand as hard as he can, and lets the wind carry him to the Top Box. The screams, and the lights, and the whirling motion of the pitch around him are too much, so he soars automatically to where he needs to go.

“THE FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHTH QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP IS OVER. RUSSIA WINS! KATSUKI CATCHES THE SNITCH, BUT RUSSIA WINS THE CUP! IT’S BEEN ALMOST A QUARTER CENTURY SINCE THIS LAST HAPPENED AT THE FINAL MATCH, FOLKS, THIS IS THE STUFF OF HISTORY!”

What Morooka’s saying, the blue joining the red and white on all the flyers and banners and fireworks in the air – Yuuri registers none of it until after he’s stepped off his broom and onto the ledge of the Top Box, five seats down from the Spanish Minister of Magic. He holds out his hand, drops the Snitch into Viktor’s waiting palm, and _hears_.

_Ros-si-ya!_

_Ros-si-ya!_

_Ros-si-ya!_

Yuuri’s face falls.

‘Don’t cry,’ he thinks, ‘don’t cry. Don’t cry.’

And then he’s lifted off his feet. “Yuuri,” he hears Viktor murmur, right next to his left ear. “You flew like a masterpiece. _Listen_.” And then he sees the foxfire in the air, the paper lanterns lit up to spell _Katsuki_ , and another sound makes it to his ears.

_Yu-ri!_

_Yu-ri!_

_Yu-ri!_

That’s his name. They’re cheering for _him_. Even from the sections covered in blue, he can hear his name take shape in a thunderous roar. It all might be for Yurio, of course, like it was earlier, but Yuuri has a feeling that this time it isn’t. And then suddenly all his senses come back to him full-force: time speeds up, his teammates are there, grabbing him and ruffling his hair, Makkachin is licking his hand, he tastes… strawberry passionfruit, because Viktor’s hair is in his mouth.

The Japanese National Team takes their bow when they are called, and then steps politely out of the way for the Russian National Team. Except for Yuuri, of course, because Viktor has yet to let go of him, and Viktor has little shame at the best of times, and absolutely none when faced with his former teammates and training partners.

“I knew you could do it if you tried,” he shouts across to them, gaining a long, cold stare from the Japanese Minister of Magic. A smirk from her Russian counterpart. “And Yura,” he continues, “you really did do well.”

Mila stops swinging Yuri in precarious, joyful circles near the edge of the box when Viktor nods at them. She rubs the back of her neck, but Yuri throws himself at Viktor instead. Or, not at Viktor. At Yuuri. Yuri throws himself at Yuuri, arms like a willowy vise around his middle, and mutters angrily into his robes. He doesn’t bother to mutter in English or Japanese, but Yuuri’s been practicing and Viktor, smiling with his entire body, translates anyway.

“Damn you,” he says, laughing, “why couldn’t you have fucking flown like that the entire time, you pig. You broom-falling loser – oh, Yurio, you really shouldn’t call my Yuuri such names! Be a gracious winner. Has Yakov taught you nothing?”

“Lilia taught me to destroy the competition,” Yuri decidedly does not sniffle into Yuuri’s robes, because he definitely has not begun to cry. “Grace is for the birds.”

“For the birds indeed, little bird,” Viktor says, “Now either come here, or give me back my Yuuri. He’s only delivered half of his promise to me, so I really must scold him.”

He looks right at Yuuri, and the stadium almost disappears again. Yuuri has to look away, to remind himself of what has happened, and where he is.

“Not if you’re going to kiss him,” Yuri huffs, muffled. He raises his head away from Yuuri’s robes slightly, and then all at once when he realizes thousand upon thousands of people have been staring at him the entire time. “Actually, you know what? You can have him.” He pushes away, back to Mila and Georgi holding the great golden trophy between them. They’re already singing, and Yuri busies himself pretending not to want to join in.

As soon as Yurio’s arms leave Yuuri’s sides, Viktor’s swoop back in to replace them. “You heard what Yurio said,” he smiles, and smiles, “I get to have you now.”

Yuuri dares to stare up at him. “Even without the trophy?”

“You still brought me something gold to kiss,” Viktor says, “and of course I’ll have to keep you without the trophy! You’re going to need your flying coach to help you to the next World Cup, aren’t you? Or are you going to go and quit?”

“And if Japan wins the trophy then?”

Makkachin runs circles around them, ecstatic because of their palpable happiness. Little bursts of sunshine somehow burst forth from his mouth – or rather, from the wand still held between his teeth. He finally can no longer wait to jump on the two of them after the small one leaves, and Viktor is lucky Makkachin chooses to jump on Yuuri first, sending the three of them back into the box instead of over the side. They land with a huff in Viktor’s seat: a pile of robes, elbows, and fur. Yuuri still has his broom in one hand. Viktor still has the Snitch.

“Then,” Viktor says, blowing a tuft of hair out of his eyes, “you will be my very famous trophy-winning husband, and I will have to brag about you to everyone.”

He leans forward, and the wizarding world watches.

* * *

Viktor announces his intention to return to the Zenit and the Russian National Team the next day, after a late morning and a teary floo call home to Hasetsu. First he posts a selfie of a particularly enjoyable goal he made in the 2013 Russian league finals. Then, a flec of his portkey queue waiver, destination Saint Petersburg. Finally, he sends the official owls out to the major news outlets.

His old teams may or may not choose to welcome him back with open arms, but Viktor doesn’t think he’s preening too much to say that they will. Even if he did have to fight for his place, audition for the first time in over a decade, he knows he would triumph. Not because of the arrogance of success he hasn’t completely rid himself of; rather, because of the arrogance of love. He carries the Snitch Yuuri brought him everywhere he goes, and it’s so simple a thing, but when he curls his fingers around it he feels like his heart has grown its own delicate golden wings.

Yuuri announces his intention to join the Fukuoka Hornets outside of the World Cup qualifying season one minute after Viktor’s selfie, by posting a flec of Viktor posing with a blue and teal #1 Hornet Fan pennant. He has to be cajoled into it, feels it’s too coy of a way to express what he means to do, but the overwhelming reaction of his fans – he has fans, he, Yuuri Katsuki, has _fans_ – is enough to convince him it was the right idea.

“Viktor,” he says, once Viktor has finished releasing the last owl into the morning sky.

“Yes?”

“Why don’t we fly home.”

“Oh?” The sun is shining directly into Yuuri’s eyes, and the room smells strongly of owl, but Viktor knows he will jealously guard this memory inside of himself until he meets his end. “A nice long flight with my Yuuri next to me the entire time?”

“O-only if you can keep up,” Yuuri stammers, squinting through the light.

Viktor crowds close to him, runs his fingers over Yuuri’s gloves, feels the polished metal underneath.

“Then I will have to keep up.”

**Author's Note:**

> “He better not lose the game but catch the Snitch” – me, after Yuuri’s free skate in Ep 12
> 
> “HE CAUGHT THE SNITCH BUT LOST THE GAME **I AM SO MAD**  
>  BUT ALSO I WANT A QUIDDITCH AU FOR SOME REASON” – me, after the scores in Ep 12
> 
> So that’s why this happened. I wrote all of this just for the line KATSUKI CATCHES THE SNITCH, BUT RUSSIA WINS THE CUP. The drama doesn’t translate exactly, as Quidditch is a team sport and men’s figure skating is not. But I think it still works.
> 
> The hardest things about this were wizarding social media, and Wizarding Capitalization. If there were confusing things just ask, and I will explain them. I tried to explain it through the story, but I know how that goes, esp since this is only self-checked.
> 
> Also: Makkachin either safely rides to back Japan/Russia on the back of Viktor’s broom, because magic, or Yuuri’s family portkey him back. Your call. #honeymoon


End file.
